


to seal cracks with gold

by claimedbydaryl



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Anal Sex, Blind Ignis Scientia, Emotional Support, Established Relationship, Fluff, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Introspection, M/M, Riding, it's a lot more lowkey than it sounds yeesh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-04
Updated: 2017-09-04
Packaged: 2018-12-23 19:37:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11996574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/claimedbydaryl/pseuds/claimedbydaryl
Summary: Ignis had thought himself broken, fractured, destroyed.Gladio reminds him that what was once damaged could be repaired to be made even more beautiful, to paste fragments back into shape with stripes of precious colour, and to teach Ignis that he was allowed to heal.





	to seal cracks with gold

**Author's Note:**

  * For [heavnsam](https://archiveofourown.org/users/heavnsam/gifts).



> title & summary is inspired by the japanese art of "kintsugi", which is to remake broken ceramics by pasting the broken pieces back together with a paste mixed with precious metals, and to celebrate the beauty of repair.

Ignis had always believed his greatest weapon were his eyes.

Sharp, quick, nimble.

His skills were centred on his vision, an expansion of it. Polearms and lances wielded with a finely-tuned precision; meals prepared with a delicate balance and adjustment and enhancement of flavour and texture; and a keen judgment of emotions from the most nuanced flicker of expressions.

Without his eyes, he couldn’t use his hands.

Without his eyes, he couldn’t find his feet.

Clumsy, slow, inelegant.

He despised the mornings now, the moment between sluggish wakefulness and dawning awareness. He would open his eyes and wait for them to clear, for shapes and colours and detail to sharpen—and it would not.

An opaque world greeted him, misted glass in the place of his vision.

Ignis sighed, feeling dissatisfied with this mounting feeling of ineptitude. Resentful of how his most prominent emotional response was to sulk. It was a scab he did not allow to heal, continuing to pick and pick and pick at it until it bled, festered, scarred.

“Iggy?” It was Gladio’s voice, the soothing, unchanged sound of it an automatic balm to his wounds. “You up?” A knock at the door followed, the politeness of it appreciated, but grating.

“Yes, I am.”

It was strange, waiting for the sounds of the most mundane actions now. He listened as Gladio opened the door, the thick soles of his feet crossing carpet, and then the rustle of sheets and creak of the mattress as he sat at the edge of their shared bed. Ignis could not control the curl of his lip, slight and unpleasant, because he could envision everything so vividly, yet he could not  _see_ it.

“How is our dear Noctis today?” Ignis spoke before Gladio noticed his grimace and asked what troubled him—for he was forthright and tactless enough to do so.

“He’s…” An uncomfortable shift, a delayed pause. “Awake, but he still won’t leave the bed. Sleeping like it’s his kingly fucking duty or something.”

“He’s a child, Gladio. One who recently lost his father, his homeland, and his fiancée.”

“It doesn’t make him any less selfish. He has the power to do something, to change this. He even has destiny on his side.” Gladio huffed, a great bellow of exasperation. “That makes it all the worse that he’s moping around here when people are out there, dying for him, suffering for him.”

Ignis felt his mouth thin, that word— _suffering_ —striking bone-deep.

Gladio seemed to realise his poor choice of words a few seconds too late, halfway through an apology before Ignis cut him off with a swift, dismissive slash of his hand. He would not languish in each moment of accidental insensitivity like it was a personal grievance, for their collective problems loomed on the horizon, large and cosmic battles which could not be waged alone.

“I may have lost my sight, but remember that Noctis has lost his heart.”

“Iggy,” Gladio said again, his name an echo of deliberate softness.

Ignis felt his shoulders loosen at the mere cadence of Gladio’s voice, how it was pitched low and intimate. It belonged to the moments crafted from the shades of quiet tenderness, where Ignis felt Gladio’s chest rumble beneath his cheek, their fingers tracing slow, gentle patterns against bare skin.

Unable to endure the lingering tension, Ignis moved. He pushed himself into a sitting position on the brace of his palms, although his legs tangled in the bed sheets. A frustrated noise escaped him at how even the simplest tasks had become a menial nuisance. Ignis grit his teeth, pulling the material until it relented, forcing himself free.

Gladio made no move to help him, their latest argument—their only one since Ignis had been blinded—a fresh wound he did not yet wish to aggravate. In the initial stages of accustoming to the loss of his most vital human sense, Ignis had been grateful for Gladio’s ceaseless doting. He’d helped guide Ignis’s hands into sleeves, held doors open for him, cut his food into bite-sized pieces. Now it was a bothersome inconvenience he longed to be rid of.

Ignis had been a marvel of well-oiled machine of self-sufficiency beforehand. He’d processed problems, quantified them, solved them. Honed his skills. Excelled in his chosen field of work.

He could not be reduced to Gladio’s burden now—he _would_ not.

For that small fraction of an instant where he was capable of accomplishing the most mundane feats unsupervised, Ignis was proud of himself. Moments of achievement like these were rare, yet monumental. In a dignified movement, Ignis swung his legs over the side of the bed unencumbered, toes enveloped in the plush cushion of carpet. The salt-bitter breath of Altissa air was cool against his skin, refreshing if not for the cloying tang of smoke and stone from a battle that had been waged and won.

His knee brushed Gladio’s, their elbows pressed flush together.

“I don’t hate the kid,” Gladio said later. Ignis didn’t need to see to watch his shoulders drop, failing to carry an impossible weight. “You know I could never hate Noct, right?”

It was rarer still, for Gladio to be vulnerable in Ignis’s presence now. He missed the few seconds of bracing realisation wherein Ignis was struck with how he was the single source of support for Gladio—how he was the steady hand behind the shield. Again, he missed how powerful it made him feel, how it completely reassured him of his worth as Noctis’s advisor, and Prompto’s friend, and Gladio’s lover.

Ignis felt his unused will resurface for the first instant since it had been robbed from him under the oppressive pressure of Ardyn’s heel, felt it harden and resolve. He could do this—he could bolster Gladio when he wavered, could mould his doubt into his usual iron cast of confidence.

“You are Noctis’s strength, his courage,” Ignis said, dealing truth with the sageness he had once so easily possessed. “And I know that you will hold him up even when he is too weak to stand.”

Gladio’s exhale was slow and peaceful, and it was inevitable that his head would follow the path of his breath. His forehead fell into the crook of Ignis’s neck, solace found in the warm, familiar curve of flesh.

Resting his cheek against the crown of Gladio’s head, Ignis’s innate instinct was to reach out, to comfort through touch rather than words. Although it was not the slow, purposeful movements of time past. Complete awareness of his surroundings was still foreign to him.

Ignis hated the solid, directionless impact of his fingers against Gladio’s thigh. Hated how he struggled to find where his hand was, curling a grip just above Gladio’s knee. If he had his sight, the movement would be careful, subtle, precise. He wouldn’t fumble, he wouldn’t draw attention to himself, he wouldn’t be anything less than graceful.

He did, however, not hate how natural it felt to share Gladio’s space.

It was expected their relationship would strain under the crushing defeat of losing more than what they had gained—Alitissa saved but their brotherhood fractured. Scars carved into their minds and bodies alike. Their cause reduced to a hollow echo of a once-great venture.

It was expected there would be less time for pleasantries beyond a fleeting kiss shared in greeting and farewell. Gladio spent the majority of his time with Prompto, both attempting to rouse Noctis into a coherent state of being, and his remaining attention was focused on maintaining a positive political relationship with Accordo, or preparing the necessary supplies for their travels to Lucis.

And so, Ignis was only granted those stolen moments when Gladio returned to their room for the bare human necessities—to sleep or shower. He was, at least, glad for how Gladio’s nightly routine remained unaffected. His showers were brief and rudimentary; he laughed more than he talked; and when he slid into bed beside Ignis there was nothing left between them except the press of damp, clean skin and the mingling of breaths.

Although Gladio was a man of primitive wants, and he was possessive, having no qualms in covering Ignis in his touch and smell and warmth. It was usual circumstance for Gladio’s mouth to find the back of Ignis’s neck in a sleepy goodnight, for his hand to lay a brand across his stomach, and for his legs to press against the back of Ignis’s thighs.

It was unusual for Gladio to want nothing else.

It unseated Ignis, knowing this shade of Gladio, whose desires were reserved and unacted upon. Ignis already had to reset himself to innumerable aspects of his life, relearning the basic concepts of how to clothe and groom and present himself, and Ignis did not want Gladio to treat him like glass in a relationship that had weathered storms that had shattered people much weaker than him.

Ignis eased Gladio’s chin up, until their noses brushed together. “If I said I wanted to have sex, Gladiolus Amicitia, would you have me?”

There was a sudden intake of air, a swell of surprise and anticipation and want. The moment which followed lingered just a moment too long, fraught with an unspoken, awkward subject Gladio had made a habit of reiterating lately.

“Gladio,” Ignis started, “do not ask me for my permission, for the answer will always be yes.”

An amused huff. “Then yes, Ignis Scientia, I definitely wouldn’t mind having you.”

Ignis felt Gladio’s smile against his mouth, evident pleasure pressed into his skin.

It was a standard routine from there, steps they had long since memorised. Gladio’s hands found the slope of Ignis’s neck, the firm curve of his thigh, the slender line of his spine. Ignis kissed him between demands, wet and skilful, just on the edge of teasing. He complied to the disarray Gladio threw him into, undoing neat buttons and zippers and sleeves, guiding them both onto bed and stripping down, down, down.

Ignis’s heartbeat had been a steady, pleased hum, only faltering once he found himself straddling Gladio’s waist. Arousal was a low simmer in his stomach, a keen ache thrumming in his fingers, his blood, his cock—needing to be sated. In lieu of grinding against Gladio like he had done before, of enticing moans deep and grit-rough from his chest, Ignis allowed his hands drift from the thick band of Gladio’s stomach up, up, up.

It was an unspoken agreement between Ignis and Gladio—and Prompto and Noctis too—that sometimes they would indulge his abrupt interest in relearning faces through touch. It wasn’t a matter of identifying people, but further remembering the hazy-soft memories of their features, like moulding clay into intrinsic shape and detail. He liked to think Prompto’s freckles warmed under his fingertips, and that he could imagine the exact cold, lonely, beautiful shade of Noctis’s blue eyes.

Gladio, however, was a masterpiece of burly muscle and coarse hair that Ignis could commit to memory, to quantify and categorise a thousand times over. Lively smiles and boisterous confidence were more difficult to sculpt into visceral existence.

And so, Ignis’s hands slid over the firm curve of Gladio’s waist, to the ribbed muscle beneath the span of his pectorals, the hardened nub of his nipples, the dip of his clavicle, and the breadth of his shoulders. The strength crafted into each sinew and tendon of his muscle, the proud, handsome set of his facial structure, and the thick length of his hair carded between fingers.

Ignis felt Gladio’s chest rise, stutter, as his fingers dipped again, tracing the haired line marking the centre of his abdomen down. He smiled, playfully chastising Gladio as he grabbed a meaty handful of Ignis’s ass in retaliation, losing his razor-edged cunning as Gladio chose a tactic then that was sly rather than obnoxiously assertive. Gladio was a beast of desire beneath him, his grin a dangerous seduction against the damp palm of Ignis’s hand as the wide girth of a finger slipped into Ignis’s ass.

The moment was quickly racing towards them, their first union since everything had changed—after Ignis’s blindness, after Noctis losing and gaining in equal measures, after their complete emotional spectrum was limited to the coldness of fear and pain and suffering.

It was inevitable that he would be afraid, but he was tired of worrying at his seen and unseen wounds. In this single fraction of existence, he just wanted to feel Gladio as he’d always done; he just wanted to be with him.

With hands spread over Gladio’s stomach, he focused on feeling the expanse of his breaths. To recognise the slow, sure pulse of his blood. To surround himself in the muscled strength and robust presence of Gladio beneath Ignis, around him, close to him. Scent, touch, emotion—all was as comfortable and well-known as a worn sword hilt or the sensation of sliding into the leather interior of the Regalia.

It felt familiar, like an emotion that heeded no words.

It felt like home.

“Iggy?” Gladio was rising, abandoning his prepping efforts as his arms slid around Ignis’s waist. His embrace, as always, was an overwhelming crush of nakedness and direction attention. Gladiolus Amicitia did nothing in halves. “You okay?”

Ignis was primed to deliver a sharp retort, for Gladio cared to the point of being overbearing. However, he made no such move, because Gladio’s thumb was swiping across his cheek in a tender action to gather a tear that had escaped unbidden from Ignis.

The quicksilver workings of Ignis’s mind had dulled, and he felt vulnerable to this—all of this. Weak to how Gladio touched him, how useless he felt, how he couldn’t find the words to express more than the sob which quaked the very marrow of his bones.

“I’m fine,” Ignis said even when he wasn’t.

Gladio made a low noise of acknowledgment in the back of throat. He didn’t press the subject, he didn’t force Ignis open, instead Gladio tucked his face into the curve of Ignis’s neck again and waited for him to collect himself.

Which he did, because Gladio respected and trusted Ignis to set his emotions right, to revert to the great man and advisor he'd once been before. Ignis movements were purposeful, reverent, as his hand slid into Gladio’s hair afterwards. Guided his head upwards. Assured him that he wanted this, that when his hands slid over the wide berth of Gladio’s shoulders and he bent low to ask him to continue, it was something he very eagerly consented to.

Nodding mutely, Gladio pressed a kiss into the corner of Ignis’s mouth in reassurance. Such a gentle gesture from a large, powerful man settled the frantic whirlwind of Ignis’s thoughts, eased the turbulent storm of his emotions. Then Gladio’s fingers were dropping—again, blessedly—to the soft curve of skin where Ignis’s ass met his thigh, and he was shifting, adjusting his cock so the head pressed against Ignis, threatening to slide into the wet heat of him.

Then, there—

Connection fused them together in a sinuous slide of flesh, familiar and breathtaking.

Air escaped his lungs in one mightly blow, feeling his fingertips graze at the unmistakeable shape of want but not holding onto it. Ignis forced the sudden flare of his arousal to simmer into a steady burn, and he flexed his hands against Gladio’s chest, coercing him to lay backwards. With a single-minded determination Ignis spread his knees then, a gasp slipping from his mouth at the sudden, bracing fullness he felt. Gladio’s fingernails pressed crescent-shaped moons into Ignis's thighs, enormous restraint exercised as a noise caught in the tight lock of his throat.

A shiver of pleasure ran through Ignis at the familiar rhythm of Gladio’s reaction—how he had long ago learned the verses to the ballad of unravelling Gladiolus Amicitia.

Emboldened, Ignis started to rise, to fall, to reduce Gladio to ruins.

Ignis had always been a force of nature, a concentrated devastation. And so, he rocked into Gladio’s centre like a tidal wave, stealing his breath and sweeping him away. It was one of the most visceral emotions he’d felt in the past few weeks, from the startling burst of friction to the heady brushstroke of warmth.

Once Ignis had found his bearings, locking himself into the spread of muscle and limbs that moulded Gladio, he felt his out-of-place awkwardness bleed away. Forgetting his doubts, erasing his fears. He remembered that Gladio liked the clean, lean lines of his body, and when he arched his back in a delicate curve he felt an answering rumble of pleasure from Gladio.

In a predictable response, Gladio reached forward to run his fingers down the slender line of Ignis’s chest, maybe to find his cock and end this fast, or maybe not at all. Instead Ignis caught Gladio’s wrist and pressed it to the mattress above his head.

It felt like improvisation from his usual routine of reading Gladio through nuanced flickers of emotion in the hard set of his expression, since now Ignis had to focus on each shake and breath and groan from Gladio. It was strange and new and exciting.

Gladio huffed, hot air blowing over Ignis’s neck, and he realised then he liked this change too.

Not because it was different now meant it had to be any lesser than before—their relationship had not stagnated, yet somewhat tragically taken to drastic adjustment, to growing.

Ignis felt Gladio’s mouth scrape against his cheek, a savage grin ready to spill a loud, obnoxious comment, so Ignis chose to do what he did best—to control. He leaned back, stabilising himself just for a moment before altering the pace of his slow, steady movements into Gladio.

He pushed himself to rise higher, then pressed down, grinding into Gladio.

Sound reverberated through Gladio’s bones, settling deep and electric in Ignis’s skin. Suppressing the wild edge of a smile, Ignis focused on meeting the shallow thrusts of Gladio into him. He needed the ember to spark into flame, to let it rage into an inferno which consumed them both. Ignis wanted to feel the mark of Gladio against him for days to come, to know their breaths and skin and sweat had mingled into one being for a single moment—and to confirm that Ignis was alive.

That he could love and languish and lavish because he was here, because he had survived.

“Iggy?”

Rather than answering, Ignis alternated the placement of his hands to rest on the tense set of Gladio’s thighs behind him, feeling his weight meld into Gladio, let himself gasp shakily at the naked sensation of it. He would scarce admit it aloud, but he indulged in his ability to clench his insides and feel the thick heat of Gladio within him. It was a primal urge, something of possession that nearly rivalled Gladio’s constant desire to leave traces of their fucking upon his skin and mouth and body.

“Fuck—Iggy. _Fuck_.” Gladio gritted out, sounding halfway to seriousness.

Despite the dim light catching in the thin sheen of sweat on Ignis, despite the laboured pant of his breathing, Ignis gathered all his cultivated faculties to say, “Yes?” As if he was not the one spread open against Gladio, riding him with all the collected poise of an equestrian.

“I know you’re trying to prove a point and all—” Gladio’s voice dropped, roughened, because Ignis was merciless. He’d leaned forward now, removing Gladio’s hands from their desperate curl around his waist to knot their fingers together, and then he was—

Then he was bouncing in Gladio’s lap.

Gladio swore then, because he didn’t have the skill to form words.

A low, animal sense of gratification warmed Ignis at that realisation, but he also didn’t trust himself to speak. It was a rushed, uncontrollable thread of emotion then—the hopeless want of release, the heady thrill of sex, the overwhelming surge of affection.

Whatever frustration Ignis had left was wrought out, leaving him shaking and helpless to the one thing he’d truly been craving—Gladio. Just the simple closeness of him, the more full-bodied promise than fleeting, hollow memories of touch when they feel asleep. The raw desire of feeling his own emotions reciprocated through a sense that didn’t rely solely on visual contact.

Ignis knew his climax was fast-approaching, and knew Gladio’s was too.

A tell-tale tingle built at the base of his spine, matching the tremble of Gladio’s thighs.

He pressed his knees to Gladio’s sides and Gladio squeezed his hands in return.

He felt Gladio quiver, shake, twitch inside him, and then Gladio thrust upwards in a movement so strong and so firm it spurred a bolt of pure, earth-shattering pleasure through Ignis. A high cry slipped from his mouth, even when Gladio was panting now, more loud and uneven and unrestrained than him.

Gladio thrust into Ignis again, and he had no defences left to guard himself from breaking.

Pleasure spilled between, Ignis’s back curving into a sinuous arch that he knew Gladio loved to admire—an artwork of flesh and muscle—and then Gladio was following him into oblivion too.

Ignis heaved, falling forward. His forehead met Gladio’s sternum as shudders racketed him, their bodies both shaking, both subsiding from the powerful aftereffects of climax. Afterwards, Gladio’s large, steady hands stroke down the curve of Ignis’s spine, his voice slow and molasses-thick against Ignis’s ear.

“You okay?”

Ignis huffed a breathless laugh. “Are you?”

“Hey, watch it.” Gladio’s chest rumbled with a quiet, watered-down mirth. “I’m just not much use when you set your mind to finishing something.” His palm settled on the small of Ignis’s back, rubbing comforting circles into his skin—it was a stupid notion that it would so easily lull the Ignis’s harried worries and fears into calm, but it did.

“I missed you,” Ignis admitted, although Gladio had never really left him.

“Well, I’m here now.”

Ignis pushed himself up on shaking arms, just so he could kiss Gladio in repsonse.

He realised then he hadn’t needed to feel to see things—to map out his blurred surroundings with touch—since Gladio’s lips had first touched his. Yet Ignis wasn’t left hollow at the thought, instead he felt whole. As if he could survive, and even live happily, without the bone-deep infuriation of wanting to provide instant results.

The reality he'd been so rudely forced to adjust to before had been tolerable at best, but now… Ignis knew he could grow to accept it. Learn his limitations, adapt to a different environment, and work to succeed in that which he knew he already excelled in.

Ignis didn’t need to see his hands to rely on them.

He just had to trust his friends to lead him when he did not have the ability to find his way through the darkness, and he would protect them with his life in return. He would love them because he knew they would not fail him.

Ignis may have lost his eyes, but he had Gladio’s.

Gladio’s faith may have been shaken, but Ignis would never let his beliefs wane.

“Gladio?” Ignis kissed him again, gladdened to feel his smile widen. A sun appearing through a cloudy grey-dark sky.

Touch skated along Ignis’s spine, and then Gladio's fingers fanned against the brace of Ignis's ribcage, holding him as he would a glass sculpture—reverent but firm. “Yeah?

“Thank you, for everything.”

Gladio just laughed, rolling Ignis onto his back out of some errant playfulness—and the noise was so hearty and warm that soon Ignis felt himself laughing too. It was a moment so intimate and so singularly unique in not being waylaid by hidden motivations or looming, impossible feats. Ignis was able to forget his sadness and feel himself lift, light and airy as Gladio's infectious warmth seeped into him. Sealed the fractured spiderweb of cracks of Ignis's mind and body with gold, and remade him into something beautiful, something worthy of celebrating these small moments of happiness.

And so Ignis allowed himself to laugh, and love, and  _live_.

**Author's Note:**

> lmao thanks for reading & happy birthday simba ren!! im glad we can all share in gladio being a good bf to ignis like (͠≖ ͜ʖ͠≖) murder me tall boi (͠≖ ͜ʖ͠≖) also comments & kudos are much appreciated.
> 
> check me out @ [tumblr](http://diggitydamnsebastianstan.tumblr.com/) lads!


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